Top 35 Mickey Rooney Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “You always pass failure on the way to success.”

— Mickey Rooney

Featured in: Failure Quotes

2. “The film The Last Temptation of Christ, no matter what its defenders say, was a slap in the face to Christians everywhere.”

— Mickey Rooney

3. “Hey kids! Let’s put on a show!”

— Mickey Rooney

4. “I don’t regret anything I’ve ever done. I only wish I could have done more.”

— Mickey Rooney

5. “When I was 19 years old, I was the number one star of the world for two years; when I was 40, nobody wanted me; I couldn’t get a job.”

— Mickey Rooney

6. “God bless the universe, God bless Japanese, Chinese, Indians, all of them and let’s have peace.”

— Mickey Rooney

7. “It’s confusing. I’ve had so many wives and so many children I don’t know which house to go to first on Christmas.”

— Mickey Rooney

8. “My marriage license reads, ‘To whom it may concern,’”

— Mickey Rooney

9. “To those seniors, and especially elderly veterans like myself, I want to tell you this: You are not alone, and you having nothing to be ashamed of. If elder abuse happened to me, it can happen to anyone. I want you to know that you deserve better.”

— Mickey Rooney

10. “I just want to be a professional. I couldn’t live without acting.”

— Mickey Rooney

11. “Life is an infiltration course. We all try and get through it. We all try and get through it unscathed – maybe not hurt, not bruised. No bones broken, maybe a few hearts here and there.”

— Mickey Rooney

12. “Someone once asked me what I want on my epitaph when I pass away. Just the words ‘I tried.’ That’s what this game of life is all about. Trying. There’s the tryers, the criers, and the liars.”

— Mickey Rooney

13. “Meadowlark Lemon is one very clever man, unique and truly one of a kind.”

— Mickey Rooney

14. “Had I been brighter, the ladies been gentler, the Scotch been weaker, had the gods been kinder, had the dice been hotter, this could have been a one-sentence story: Once upon a time I lived happily ever after.”

— Mickey Rooney

15. “Hollywood has unfortunately become a memory. It’s nothing but a sign on the side of a hill.”

— Mickey Rooney

16. “I’ve been short all my life. And if anyone wonders what my dying wish will be, they can stop wondering. That will be easy. I’ll just tell them, ‘I’ll have a short bier.’”

— Mickey Rooney

17. “On Hollywood turning its back on him: I wasn’t in the club. You see, I’m not going to be a stroker. I never have been all my life.”

— Mickey Rooney

18. “Always get married in the morning. That way if it doesn’t work out, you haven’t wasted the whole day.”

— Mickey Rooney

19. “I buy women shoes and they use them to walk away from me.”

— Mickey Rooney

20. “When I open a refrigerator door and the light goes on, I want to perform.”

— Mickey Rooney

21. “John Frances, Entertainment Chair, of the Friars Club: Of all the roasts that I have produced for the Friars Club, this is the one that I am most excited about. Mickey is one of the Club’s dearest friends, and we wanted to honor him in the way we know best.”

— Mickey Rooney

22. “I don’t pick the roles. Your agent gets a call for you and you go and they all get together, everybody has fun at the reading, and they say, “There’s chemistry here.” So that’s how it happens.”

— Mickey Rooney

23. “There were times when I was broke, when I was down in Florida and I had to go to cocktail parties for 500 bucks – to see the guy that used to be in pictures. I’m not ashamed of that. I’ve never done anything that I was ashamed of. I’ve done a lot of things I didn’t mean to do.”

— Mickey Rooney

24. “I’m 74 but I feel like I’m 35. And it isn’t work. You know what it is? It’s fun, absolute fun. I don’t know many people who are fortunate enough to be in a business like that.”

— Mickey Rooney

25. “Look, I come from vaudeville, I come from burlesque, I come from heartaches, I come from sadness, I come from gladness, I come from work and sweat and respect for the craft.”

— Mickey Rooney

26. “Now. Now is the most important time of all of your young lives. And what does now stand for – N-O-W? No Other Way. That’s the only time – NOW!”

— Mickey Rooney

27. “If I ever complain to an agent about anything, he always has a pained look on his face, like, “How can you be so ungrateful? Why, Mick, I just named my yacht after you!””

— Mickey Rooney

28. “The audience and I are friends. They allowed me to grow up with them. I’ve let them down several times. They’ve let me down several times. But we’re all family.”

— Mickey Rooney

29. “I keep going because if you stop, you stop. Why retire? Inspire.”

— Mickey Rooney

30. “I was a thirteen-year-old boy for thirty years.”

— Mickey Rooney

31. “And that’s the way I have always lived, for the laughs – today. N-O-W. No Other Way.”

— Mickey Rooney

32. “Women liked me because I made them laugh.”

— Mickey Rooney

33. “I’m the only man in the world with a marriage licence made out to whom it may concern.”

— Mickey Rooney

34. “Nowadays, it is fashionable for agents to be out. When you call them, they’re always “out.” It’s in, you see, to be out. If they’re in, they’re out. So, they’re always out. That way, they’ll be in.”

— Mickey Rooney

35. “I’ve been coming back like a rubber ball for years.”

— Mickey Rooney

36. “A lot of people have asked me how short I am. Since my last divorce, I think I’m about $100,000 short.”

— Mickey Rooney

37. “I belong to the public. The public made me. The public can break me. I owe them my life.”

— Mickey Rooney